Navigate to the Yahoo! Music Unlimited page, and you won’t see any links to the “To Go” option. You can only get the basic service, which allows you to listen at home. [yawn]
The only link to the “To Go” option is from the Sansa Connect website, and it takes you to a page where it says SanDisk Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go* and shows a picture of the Connect.
That $100 price drop makes SO much sense now. But I gotta say, I had a 4GB Sansa player that I would’ve been just as happy to keep.
(READ MY POST ENTITILED " Yahoo Music Unlimited… And That’s It???" )
If something goes down @ Yahoo w/ YMU, then please Sandisk, please restructure the wireless portion of the Sansa Connects’ firmware for Rhapsody!!!
Here’s a blog on News.com discussing the issue aswell (links on YMU gone etc):
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9775823-7.html
I think ultimately the DRM based online music stores are going to come down to:
iTunes (Of course)
Wal-Mart Music Downloads (The most recognized retailer with the best in-store advertising.)
Real Rhapsody (Been around forever and has Verizon/Best Buy/MTV and more in their corner.)
Napster (Though, they have been known to be looking for someone to buy them.)
Zune Marketplace (Microsoft has $$$ to burn…)
I think everyone else with go by the wayside, even Yahoo. I don’t think they can continue with their cheaper subscription prices, in the first place. There aren’t that many PlayForSure partners left… Wal-Mart, Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music Unlimited and F.Y.E Digital Downloads.
Amazon.com will launch DRM-Free AND there is always e-Music, but neither will ever be subscription based with every label, less they use DRM.
I want subscription based services to continue, but I think it’s eventually gonna come down to a branded combination DAP/Music Store. No one can seem to find any formula, beyond that. Apple succeeds because of 1 Music/Movie Store guaranteeing compatibility with 1 line of devices, nothing more… I think multiple companies can market any player they wish, as long as they guarantee compatibility with only ONE music/movie store. iRiver & Sandisk can make Rhapsody compatible players and probably succeed, as long as they work seamlessly with Rhapsody and Rhapsody only. Yes, iPods are easy to use, but most manufacturers are coming just as close… Unfortunately, I think subscription services, and the fact that there are multiple services there-in, scare/overwhelm some people. People don’t understand DRM technology, therefore Apple made it simple: iPod + iTunes + Purchase Only = Seamless.
Unfortunately, people don’t like renting music. Maybe the ability to wirelessly/instantly download music via WiFi to DAP will increase subscription popularity in the future.
Now Apple going into rental movie downloads, but it’s still iTunes and it’s still the iPod, nothing more… People have been renting movies for years. People may be willing to rent for their iPods now???
Sony CONNECT’s music service (though it was an integrated ecosystem, like iTunes/iPod) didn’t work because Sony didn’t work with Sony. Yeah nobody liked ATRAC3 and SonicStage, but ultimately Sony is responsible for Sony CONNECT failing. Numerous Sony divisions never worked together, nor did they barely know about CONNECT, or what CONNECT was. Sony Ericsson never wanted to support CONNECT or ATRAC3. SCEA customer care barely knew what CONNECT was when I’d call them. Everytime I’d mention MagicGate, they’d think I’m talking about Memory Sticks, themselves, not the DRM scheme on Memory Sticks. Sony’s customer support was very ill-educated about Sony’s own technologies when it came to DRM. So that’s why Sony failed to compete against iTunes. Now, Sony is a WMA/PlayForSure Napster supporter… HA HA!!!
Message Edited by bigcraig01 on 09-14-2007 11:57 AM
They’ve totally dropped the to go option from the Yahoo site. This price drop right before ending sales of the service means to me it’s only a matter of time before the service goes away. I’m seriously thinking about returning my Connect to Amazon while I still can, although it looks like I’m probably stuck with the $143 I paid to Yahoo.
I bet the Connect prices will plummet.
Argh…
I don’t dislike Yahoo and I don’t dislike subscription services by any means. I’ve subscribed to everyone, ever made available. I’m saying whether Yahoo Music Unlimited continues or not, I’ve just felt that Yahoo shouldn’t have entered the music selling/subscription business. I love Yahoo Mail. I just wish POP3/SMTP access was free again. But I just think they should utilize their funds elsewhere, especially to appease stockholders, which is why YMU is cutting back as it is… I’m NOT a stock holder, by the way.
I bought the Sansa Connect, knowing it was tied to YMU, though I wasn’t fond of it… I still like the Connect. I just wish it would’ve been made for Rhapsody to begin with. Real’s entire operating initiative is based around digital media & content delivery. That’s where their heart is, entirely.
Yahoo’s isn’t. Yahoo’s is general information delivery.
Real owns their own DRM, reverse engineered Apple’s DRM and licenses Windows Media DRM from Microsoft.
Real developed their own codecs.
Supports just about every codec ever developed, from server to client.
Real contributes their products to opensource and vice-versa with the Helix initiative.
Owns their own digital media distribution outlets. (Rhapsody & Real Music Store)
Licenses their own DRM to 3rd parties. (Unlike Apple)
Has Best Buy, Sandisk, iRiver, Verizon and MTV, among others as partners.
With the Rhapsody America initiative, MTV just provided $230 million dollars in advertising over the next 5 years.
(Rhapsody was all over the Video Music Award’s, before and after Britney’s performance. I think that was the most advertising I’d ever scene, of a music service at any given time.)
I don’t care who owns the store. I just want subscription-based music. I want to pay one price and download everything. I also want to do it wirelessly, direct to my player. I love my Connect player as it works now. If Yahoo Music goes away and the Connect is re-firmwared to work with whatever the flavor of the year music store is, that’s all just as well with me.
Interesting though - MTV is going to start airing Yahoo’s “Nissan Live Sets”. They will also air on MHD, which is MTV’s hi-def channel. Kind of an odd thing, since MTV and Rhapsody are tied together and all.
And now Yahoo! Music Unlimited is becoming a web-based application. MTV airing content from and helping to generate traffic for a competitor?
On the one hand, it really seems like all these people are just flailing at ideas without much commitment to any one of them, but ultimately, I think we have the record companies to blame in all of this. The cost of streaming Internet radio recently went up, and I think Yahoo’s “restructuring” is a result of those new and insane fees. If the record companies weren’t taking such a large chunk of the revenue, maybe a few of these subscription services would be around long enough to turn a profit and become viable. Absolutely no surprise that record companies are incapable of taking the long view.
It’s all pretty straightforward. We just need a few key people to agree on the vision.
When I last looked, Yahoo! Launchcast Plus radio had MUCH better programming than Rhapsody radio. I wonder how they compare now. I’m pretty happy with Launchcast Plus as it is. It’s included with my AT&T dsl after all, which makes it nice that the Sansa Connect works with it.
Message Edited by irv on 09-30-2007 05:09 PM
I dont see what the problem is. Everybody is freaking out, so I decided to look into it. A bit of research into the matter and everything makes sense
Yahoo music still offers the ToGo Service, only its exclusive to Connect Owners
SANDISK CONNECT USERS SEE THIS http://music.yahoo.com/sansa
FOR NON SANDISK USERS - THEY SEE THIS http://music.yahoo.com/ymu/
— from the Terms of Service —
*Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go: $14.99 per month, billed monthly. Prices and charges are subject to change without notice. Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go is available to U.S.-based subscribers only. Following your free trial, should you chose to purchase a Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go subscription, please note that once billing begins, your subscription will automatically renew on the monthly anniversary of your billing date, at the then-current price offered to the public for the subscription you selected, until you tell us to cancel. The Yahoo! Music Jukebox application is free and will not be affected if you cancel a Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go subscription. This 30 Day Free Trial is available to Sansa Connect MP3 player purchasers in the United States only. See additional terms during registration. Offer valid until 12/31/2008.
Yahoo! Music does not permit copying or transferring music files to other users. Share function availability only for subscribers to access another subscriber’s Yahoo! Music Unlimited music files.
Offer available to new subscribers only
NOTE: A valid subscription is required to access saved songs.
Now I may be wrong, but everything looks ok to me?
Message Edited by Bleach_FAN on 10-21-2007 05:55 PM
You are correct, everything is ok… for now. But let’s look at the bigger picture here. How long is Yahoo going to keep up the overhead and operate at a loss to support ONE mp3 player? My guess is as long as their contract with sandisk dictates. And if it’s like a lot of other contracts, it’s a set timeframe (like 3 years or 5 years or something like that) with an option to renew after that based on both parties agreeing to the terms. Once Sandisk’s agreement with Yahoo is up, Yahoo is gonna pull the plug, there is no doubt in my mind.
Though I wouldn’t think the sky is falling, if nothing else Sandisk could provide a firmware that would allow streaming from Shoutcast though it certainly would pay more to set something up with a Napster or Rhapsody.
@bleach_fan wrote:
I dont see what the problem is. Everybody is freaking out, so I decided to look into it. A bit of research into the matter and everything makes sense
Yahoo music still offers the ToGo Service, only its exclusive to Connect Owners
SANDISK CONNECT USERS SEE THIS http://music.yahoo.com/sansa
FOR NON SANDISK USERS - THEY SEE THIS http://music.yahoo.com/ymu/
— from the Terms of Service —
*Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go: $14.99 per month, billed monthly. Prices and charges are subject to change without notice. Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go is available to U.S.-based subscribers only. Following your free trial, should you chose to purchase a Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go subscription, please note that once billing begins, your subscription will automatically renew on the monthly anniversary of your billing date, at the then-current price offered to the public for the subscription you selected, until you tell us to cancel. The Yahoo! Music Jukebox application is free and will not be affected if you cancel a Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go subscription. This 30 Day Free Trial is available to Sansa Connect MP3 player purchasers in the United States only. See additional terms during registration. Offer valid until 12/31/2008.
Yahoo! Music does not permit copying or transferring music files to other users. Share function availability only for subscribers to access another subscriber’s Yahoo! Music Unlimited music files.
Offer available to new subscribers only
NOTE: A valid subscription is required to access saved songs.
Now I may be wrong, but everything looks ok to me?
Message Edited by Bleach_FAN on 10-21-2007 05:55 PM
I agree cmhdave…
Yahoo is not going to continue such a service just to support one Wifi Music Player… So unless Yahoo is gathering Creative Labs, Sony and Samsung for Wifi capable subscription players, YMU’s subscription based future isn’t the brightest…
They will do as you say, Sir… They will continue till the contract runs out (to which by then Sandisk will have partnered with someone else and/or released a new firmware/device) and Yahoo will go bye bye. Virgin Digital, and AOL MusicNow have closed up shop… What makes Yahoo any different, if even the once mighty AOL couldn’t cut it? Sony, even with their own ecosystem of devices and dedicated music store failed. How is Yahoo going to survive?
Yahoo has a snowballs chance in H.E. double… I’ve been purchasing/downloading music since 2002 with LiquidAudio.com and I’ve seen soo many of em come and go… subscription and purchase…
Napster and Rhapsody are the only services that are ultimately going to survive the music wars… Beyond the Zune Marketplace and iTunes.
AT&T just announced OTA music purchasing/downloading with Napster and Rhapsody has MTV and Verizon with Rhapsody America.
Due note that AT&T also partnered with Yahoo Music Unlimited for music purchasing initially not-OTA (but computer to phone), yet the above announcement is exclusively with Napster for OTA downloads. Now if YMU was doing well, wouldn’t AT&T have potentially partnered with them aswell for OTA purchasing/downloading???
According to ian rogers, things don’t look too bright, but they do have a contract with sandisk till 2009 (what a short sighted contract. read up here: http://hackingym.blogspot.com/
Intriguing…
So they have a contract with MusicMatch, huh? Okay Sandisk now has until 2009 to line up another service provider for use their Sansa Connect line, pending the release of any future Sansa Connect models. I don’t know why they stopped allowing To-Go subscribers access altogether, basically… I mean if the infrastructures still going to be intact for it, why stop allowing access to it? Why just Sansa owners?
It’s losing them money, i think
I just bought my Sansa Connect on 12/23/2007 . I signed up and paid for the yahoo music subscription, however when I try to connect and download a song via wi fi, I get the message “Subscription required”. I have gone to the yahoo music to go site for sansa, entered my credit card, and was moved to another page that told me my subscription cannot be changed. I wrote to yahoo and recieved the following reply:
Hello Joseph,
Thank you for writing to us about your desire to upgrade your account
with Yahoo! Music Unlimited.
Yahoo! Music stopped selling new subscriptions to the To Go tier of
Yahoo! Music Unlimited on September 4, 2007. Going forward, new
subscriptions to the To Go tier will only be available through select
partner channels such as SanDisk (Sansa Connect). We will continue to
support the To Go tier for all current subscribers for the foreseeable
future.
Alternatively, your Yahoo! Music Unlimited account allows you to add and
save subscription tracks to your PC from the Unlimited library. Since
there is no ability at this time to transfer subscription music to
portable devices, you can purchase burnable downloads from Yahoo! Music
Unlimited which you can import to your own CDs and transfer to your
portable device through the Yahoo! Music Jukebox.
We appreciate your interest in Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go, and urge
you to explore all the features offered by Yahoo! Music Unlimited for
PC:
http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
Thank you for contacting us about your concern. We hope that we have
answered your question, but if not, please reply to this email and we
will endeavor to resolve it to your satisfaction.
Well, I have tried to find the link on the Sansa site to connect and subscribe to the Yahoo To Go service that will allow me to use my wifi download feature without success…can you help me please?
Try Yahoo! again. Below is from SanDisk FAQs.
Q: How do I sign up for Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go?
A: Sansa Connect owners can signup for Yahoo! Music Unlimited To Go at www.music.yahoo.com/sansa. This is a link to a 30-day FREE TRIAL that converts to a subscription after the 30-days ends. You may have a problem with this signup if you already have a Yahoo! Music Unlimited account. The trial signup will state that you already have an account, although it is not a To Go account and will not work with the Connect. To get past this problem, you may need to cancel your current YMU subscription and then you can signup using the FREE TRIAL link. Make sure you signup again using the same Yahoo! ID as previous to preserve all your YMU bookmarks. You may need to contact Yahoo! Support for assistance.
Q: How do I get assistance from Yahoo! Services?
A: Yahoo support information can be found at help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/music/index.html. You can find a link to Yahoo! Customer Support under the Yahoo! Music Unlimited section. You can request assistance from either technical support or billing support.
Check out the ’ Ibiza Rhapsody’… a little expensive, but does the same thing as the Connect,
however with Rhapsody…
… good to have a backup 
dbar2 wrote:
Check out the ’ Ibiza Rhapsody’… a little expensive, but does the same thing as the Connect,
however with Rhapsody…
… good to have a backup
A “little” expensive?
The lowest price I’ve been able to find for the iBiza is $229. Compare to $92 for the Connect.
This is very true… $99 can’t be beat… but if Yahoo stopped going with the Sansa, I think
the Ibiza would be the only wifi subscription player left…
Also, it just came out… like many MP3 players, I’m sure the price will come down in time…
A couple of days ago I bought the Connect. Luverly player
| Legal | Terms of Use | Privacy Statement | Forum Terms of Service |
|
| © Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Western Digital Technologies, Inc. is the seller of record and licensee in the Americas of SanDisk® products. |
